


Unlikely Collaboration

by ancalime8301



Series: Spencer Stories [10]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Cats, Community: watsons_woes, Fluff, Gen, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancalime8301/pseuds/ancalime8301
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer enlists the help of Dawson and Basil to discover a bit of information that Holmes has been unable to find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely Collaboration

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the[watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) JWP day 14 [prompt](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1117734.html): _All For One And One For All. Have any three characters cooperate to overcome some obstacle. Bonus points if they are characters that don't normally interact and/or work well with each other._
> 
> Refers to "[Tiny Stitches](http://archiveofourown.org/works/883511)" and "[Cat + Cheese](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1943544)".

"Honestly, Holmes, I think Mrs. Hudson will be touched that you thought to give her a Christmas gift at all. Why does it have to be monogrammed with all three initials when two will do?"

"A proper monogram includes the middle initial, Watson. Nothing less will suffice."

"Why don't you just ask her, then?"

"And reveal that her gift involves her initials? Never."

Spencer listened to them arguing, mystified by why a "middle initial", whatever that was, was so important to the tall one. The kind one threw up his hands and stalked from the room; the tall one huffed with disgust and went into his bedroom, slamming the door.

Suddenly, Spencer had an idea. He went to the wall beside the hearth and sniffed along the molding until he located the doorway of those mice that had helped him with his paw a while ago. He scratched at it, mewed plaintively three times, then settled down a short distance from the wall to wait.

It wasn't long before the door opened a crack and a mouse nose tested the air. Upon deeming it safe, the healer mouse emerged. They exchanged their good evenings, then the mouse waited expectantly for Spencer to reveal why he'd called.

Spencer explained the conversation he'd overheard, and asked if the mouse knew what the fuss was about. The mouse spent a moment chuckling before he could answer, and finally explained the business behind people--and mice--having multiple names, including a middle one that was rarely used, but was usually represented by its first letter.

"You said they argued about obtaining Mrs. Hudson's middle initial?" the mouse repeated, and Spencer confirmed it. "Basil is currently not engaged on a case; let me see if this little question will interest him enough to do something about it. You will not mind if we investigate on the tall one's behalf?"

"Not at all!" Spencer agreed readily. "And I have just the thing for you both if you can find out for me."

"Oh?" Dawson inquired, his whiskers and tail at attention.

"Did you smell the cheese that was here a few weeks ago?" At Dawson's nod, Spencer said, "I saved some."

This reward seemed just the thing, and they had a deal. Their bargain struck, Dawson vanished into the wall, and Spencer went about his business as if he hadn't just been conversing with a mouse. Some things the two-legged ones just didn't need to know.

 

The following evening Spencer was curled up on Watson's lap when a squeak summoned him to the wall. Both mice were there, and when Spencer had planted himself between them and the two-legged ones, they pulled from the wall a folded piece of paper. Basil proudly informed him that this envelope addressed to Mrs. Hudson bore her middle initial and should be sufficient for his needs. Spencer, in a hushed mew, asked if he could take it to the kind one for confirmation--then, he promised, he would bring the cheese.

Having their agreement, Spencer picked up the envelope in his teeth and carried it over to Watson. "Spencer, what have you got there?" Watson asked, after Spencer pawed his leg to get his attention.

When Watson looked at it, he threw his head back and laughed heartily. "Look here, Holmes, the cat has figured out what you could not: this has got Mrs. Hudson's middle initial!"

Holmes stalked over from the settee and snatched the envelope from Watson's hand, glaring at it as his eyes confirmed what Watson said. Somehow that cat had pilfered a piece of Mrs. Hudson's mail to answer the question that his investigation into Mrs. Hudson's marriage license had failed to address.

Holmes looked up from the miraculous envelope just in time to be presented with a new mystery: Spencer set down a square of cheese by the wall, which promptly vanished as if it had never been there. Spencer returned to Watson's lap looking quite smug, and Holmes decided he wasn't going to ask how Spencer had come by the envelope. Spencer couldn't--or wouldn't?--tell him, anyway.


End file.
